The natural world. Looking pretty for 3.5b years.

Pluto Wows, Again

New Horizons provided further Pluto images showing how a different perspective using backlit photography can provide much more details than might be expected. Wow is the word, again!

Backlit Pluto (credit: New Horizons)

According to NASA, the New Horizons spacecraft: "looked back toward the sun and captured a near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. The smooth expanse of icy plain (right) is flanked by rugged mountains up to 11,000 feet high. To the right, rougher terrain is cut by apparent glaciers. The backlighting highlights over a dozen layers of haze in Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere."

NASA researchers indicated this new image is projected from a backlit perspective highlighting the intricate flow lines of glaciers (probably frozen nitrogen) with the flow front of the ice moving outlined by blue arrows. The red arrows point to where the glacier originates from Pluto’s mountains through 2-5 mile wide valleys.